The weather wasn't the best as I left home around 12 pm for the 30 minute journey to Edenbridge. Rain was definitely in the air.
When I arrived at the car park I found it quite full. This was a shock to me as usually even when the sun is out the attendance on a Sunday isn't very high.
Undeterred I loaded up the trolley and made my way round the back of the lake. I'd decided on the way down to fish one of the early swims as I hadn't done so for about a year. My luck was in as I discovered that they were all free.
I chose peg 4 because it had some very fishy looking lily pads to which I could fish to. I mixed up some ground bait and set up the float rod. It was 13:18 when I made my first cast.
I started with corn on the hook while feeding small halibut pellets every few minutes. It took a while before the swim responded but when it did I was into the roach and bream.
At 3 pm a hooter or whistle went off and I realized that there was a match on! That's why there were so many cars in the car park. I didn't think there would be a match on the Sunday after NF had been closed for a week but there you go.
At 16:20 I changed hook baits from corn to meat to see how that would fare. It galvanized the lake's tench into action as I seemed to catch one after another. Those little fellas sure put up a fight on light tackle.
As the match anglers filed past me one of the anglers dropped some of his gear and remarked 'I should make two journeys'. He picked his stuff up and made his way to the car park. Later I discovered that he had left his landing net behind. I will give it to Peter next time I am there.
At 17:27 as the evening began to close in I hooked a carp which immediately took me across the lake and into the lilys on the far side. After applying pressure for several minutes the carp finally spat the hook. I was gutted.
Not put off I re-baited the swim and continued fishing. I never got another indication that anymore carp were in the vicinity. By the time I was ready to call it quits I thought I would have a dabble in front of the reeds almost under my feet.
The bait wasn't in the water more than a few seconds before it shot away and so did the fish! Instead of heading across it went down the lake. I was initially lucky in that it passed 2 beds of lilys however it did get in the third. After much coaxing I got it out however on the way back to my swim it went into the second set.
For several minutes I applied pressure in an attempt to get it out. I even walked down the bank so that I was opposite the fish. I did see it from time to time but it was a stubborn fighter and refused to come out. In the end the inevitable happened and the hook length broke. I was gutted.
It was at that point that I decided to pack up and call it a day. In retrospect I had a really good enjoyable session. In total I caught 17 fish, 6 bream, 3 roach, 7 tench and a solitary crucian carp (see below).
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